Evolving news on the science, writing and thinking about Near Death Experiences (NDEs)

Happy Christmas!

“The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.”

John 1:9

I usually avoid referencing my faith as I want this blog to focus objectively on the research around NDEs. However, in an era where I see my fellow Christians being persecuted on an ever larger scale, and the establishment doing its best to eradicate faith in Christ from the public space, please indulge me on this day that is special to me and billions of others, and let me wish you a Happy Christmas.

Many people who have NDEs report a being of light emanating unconditional love. I personally believe this light is a being we call God, and that today, I celebrate the moment I believe this light came to earth in the form of a man called Jesus and shared a message that is echoed in many NDEs: Love one another…everyone, without exception.

Poor and naive Ben. You just lost all your pseudo scientific credibility. You have absolutlely no proof of the existence of the injust imposter who would be responsable for all the kids’ suffering in the world. I there are no proof either of the inexistence a higher level spiritual …somethnng. Believing is pure unscientific wishful thinking.

Believing can be perfectly rational (but I agree, often isn’t). You can believe there is no God based on a rational thought process, or you can believe there is a God based on a rational thought process. Neither position can be proven scientifically, but there is arguably more evidence to support the idea of an intelligent source to the origin of life than not. There is no evidence to disprove God’s existance at all, and never will be. There is only evidence to challenge various literal religious accounts of creation, not whether life and the universe were created or not.

In your post, you are also conflating manmade expectations of what God should be and do with the question on whether or not such a being exists. God could indeed be nasty and vindictive if he exists, that only challenges the Christian understanding of who he is, not the question of whether he is there or not.

Finally, I am happy to discuss these things, as they are related to the subject of NDEs since so many people report a being of light, but I do ask you to keep the tone respectful.

What I am saying is that all religious belief is unscientific as well as atheism, since there are no proof of either position.
What Dr. Parnia is looking into – the right way: scientific – is not related to religious belief, but to prove that our life might not end after our physical earthly existence.
As far as I am concern, I have undisputable proofs of an “au-delà” existence which is totally unrelated to anytype of god.
Love Ben. Despite the fact that you are a believer in on of the multitude of gods that many religions have created on our little planet Earth, one of the 62 400 000 000 000 000 000 000 planets that circle in the habitable zone of their stars in our “known” Univers of 2 000 000 000 000 galaxies….
The Pseudo infallible pope would be the only holding the truth in this Universe?
With no proofs. Come on…

I agree that Parnia’s approach is scientific, but the question of the nature of consciousness is very close to the subject of religion.

On the origin of life, in case you missed previous comments I have made about this, my Ph.D. was focused on the chemistry and biochemistry of nucleosides and amino acids, the building blocks of DNA and proteins, and so I have some knowledge that is relevant to this subject. The fact is that if the entire universe had been dedicated to manufacturing a functional protein since the moment of its coming into existence over 13 billion years ago, and that the universe had an unlimited supply of starting materials, the chances of it happening would still be effectively zero.

This is just one of the insurmountable problems facing the belief in the idea that random processes generated even the most simple form of life. The biggest problem though is the appearance of a code. Code, from our observations, has only been produced by intelligence, and therefore this is evidence supporting the idea that intelligence initiated life.

Why bother? He is clearly trolling. There was no reason whatsoever to enter the thread otherwise, since the title is clear enough about the topic. Sometimes it’s best just to tell people to f—- off and he seems to deserve it ATM.

Point taken, but it may have been that our friend from Quebec had a bit too much Christmas spirit when he first posted…I’m prepared to give people the benefit of the doubt…for a while. Not everyone who gets angry about faith is a troll, it is quite a common reaction among some people for various reasons.

Also can you confirm if every one of those 300 subjects had the ipad image present during cardiac arrest? Or ask him what % of people had the ipad present?

Because it’s something you can’t miss floating near the ceiling, and there has to be at least 1 OBE out of 300 survivors, and Parnia is very supportive of NDEs so the OBErs must have seen the image or else Parnia would be calling it a hallucination.

I’ve emailed him but he won’t respond. Maybe he knows you better so will tell you. Thanks!!!

@Chad Of course they survived initially, otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to be interviewed ! As to the second question, the answer is yes. But only 10-20 % will have reported (or been able to remember) an NDE and only about 10-20-30 %
of those will have had an out of body experience. And only a percentage of those will have been up in the perfect position to possibly see and remember the image on the tablet.
It’s a very challenging experiment to say the least and you’re going to have to be patient. Parnia is not going to release any data until the study is complete and analysed, he said so. Aware 2 will then lead to Aware 3 and so on and so forth.

I think if they have an OBE they’ll definitely see the image, it’s almost always right on top of their body, only rarely are they in the corner. And even if they are in the corner, they’ll find the pole weird and move towards it to see check it out. So if someone had an OBE (1% of survivors at least) they’ll see the image. I just wish Parnia would confirm this already, by far the most important thing in the history of the universe and he keeps us on hang.

Chad, I’m with David and Tim on this. I have posted many times on the chances of having a verified OBE, and if there were 300 patients who had survived a CA, had the crash cart with tablet in place during rescusitation and been interviewed, which were the basic inclusion criteria, then you would likely have about 300X0.1(chance of NDE)X0.2(chance of NDE with OBE)X0.3(chance of seeing image)…which is 2 verified OBEs. Of course the 30% able to see the image and remember is an estimate, and may be higher or lower, but I doubt it would be higher than 60%, which would give us a maximum of 4.

This might be enough for us believers to say it’s a done deal, but not the wider community. By running the full course of the study, they will have a larger number of subjects, therefore better statistics, and more credibility. There is also less risk of tainting the study before its completed by creating lots of hype.

Chad you are right to say it is potentially one of the most important studies ever conducted, which makes it all the more vital to be patient and do it right. I suspect that if Parnia is sitting on a few verified hits, he would be even more eager to share with us, than we are for him to do it, and if this the case, then all credit to him for his self-control to preserve the integrity of the study.

Look at the obsufication going on with the ufo. I did see a report that someone from Raytheon confirmed that it was their video system and indeed a ufo but most reports have been trying to create confusion. I dont want to see that here. I might suggest trying to contacr somekne like Hameroff since Parnia seems to be using his theory. There is also the annual Arizona Conscioussness conference in Spring I think. Maybe some blog members are in the area.

At some point in the future I will create a post on the Hameroff Penrose theory. I would like to gain a deeper understanding of the quantum mechanical aspect behind this. On the surface it feels like an attempt to create a scientific explanation that fits the Eastern religious worldview. It may be correct of course, but I would definitely want to take the time to understand the history, science and origin of this theory.

I as a Christian also agree that believing could be rational.
But I have problems with reconciling biblical and scientific vision of the end of the world. Bible says that Christ will come back to Earth and that there will be a judgement. And that no everybody will die but some people will get “new bodies” without death. Science says that life in the our world will end in the natural way, for example by lack of solar energy etc.
I don’t know what to think about it because it is hard to believe that somebody will get “ressurected body” without death.
What do you think about it?

Perhaps you can take solace in the fact that Revelations wasn’t attributed to any of the apostles and nobody really knows who the author was. It made the cut to be included in the Bible, it does serve a poignant moral purpose, but it frankly reads more like apocrypha than anything else given the stark contrast between it and the Gospels.

The other is Tiplers Physics of Christianity…..midern physics as theology. However Parnias latest allusions sure look like more like P H than the OPT. There us no clear afterlife concept in Judiasm jnlike ancient Egyptian religion. I will just follow the evidence.

You know I am not afraid anymore of being dead. Because now I know there is more to the bigger picture. What scares me now is dying. More or less dying in a slow painful way such as due to an ARD (Age related disease). I can only work and continue pushing for the effort to reverse damage and thus prevent ARDs in people so that I can potentially not have to be in such a situation in the future. The transition to your next life can either be quick and painless or long and drawn out torture. I don’t want it to be the latter for me.

Watching my father die a slow miserable death from dementia has made me wish that when my time comes there was just an off switch. Don’t believe in assisted suixide though…big no no if NDE reports ard to be believed.

I think that the bad NDE´s occur when people are in a bad or non loving state and most people who try to commit suicide are in such a state. I have not seen any evidence that people have bad NDE´s when they are not in a bad state and not afraid of death. For example, those who want assist to end prolonged physical pain or those who want to commit suicide for existential reasons.

I think there needs to be more data on this to draw specific conclusions about circumstances leading to suicide. I would err on the side of caution…after all, afterlife is potentially a very long time!

It depends the good thing is that it seems shaping up in the coming years later on down the road I could have some options to repair and rejuvenate myself so I have less likelyhood of getting an ARD or maybe none at all. Which is good because being chronically ill is no fun. Sorry about what happened to your father Ben. I know though that wherever he is now he is happy and probably enjoying a new stage of life on the other side. It’s a shame that not many people know of this. It helps me sleep easy at night. If Aware 1 already provided evidence Aware 2 will hit the point home in public eye. Believe me when I say that hardly anyone knows of this. I go onto Quora. If you ask someone “Is there evidence of another stage of life after “death”? You know you are going to get those “You are going to be erased” people as some potential answers. I have flagged numerous answers like those because I am afraid it could cause people to go into manic depression and anxiety episodes. But like I said these people either don’t know about research such as Aware or they are just in denial. I guess it comes with every science especially a new one. There will be people that may oppose it even if you show them evidence. They will try to twist it to mirror their own delusions.

Well, Quora is basically another forum full of people in their early 20s (or younger) that are still full of “life isn’t fair” angst and immature enough to believe virtually anything coming from a figure of authority (relevant because the majority of academia pushes far-left “religion is the opium of the masses” Marxism). Reddit is the same. So, chances are that you have already seen more of this life (and the odd things that come with it) than these kids.

No brain, no heart, no organs period. Yet consciousness is still there huh Eduardo. That’s a very cool video. I like how genuinely surprised Oz was. Now that I think about this this reminds me of the premise of the movie Flatliners. Only difference. This is real. So from what it seems it looks like you will be in dreamland for eternity. That’s nice. I like dreams. Especially vivid/real dreams. I get those ones a lot As long as they aren’t evil dreams then I’m good. I think the best scientific explanation I could give for this and how it occurs is it goes to the other consciousness hypothesis and provides valid evidence for that one. Your consciousness creates your brain. It’s not the other way around. If consciousness was created by the brain there would be complete lack of awareness but as shown here that isn’t the case. It’s official. I’m converted. I am now officially theist. The evidence is there clear as day. Well granted I kind of already was theist but now I REALLY am. It’s quite sad really that many will probably dismiss this even though it’s perfectly valid evidence towards the consciousness creates brain theory. The reason being is for the simple reason that the scientific study provides evidence that an aspect of theism (consciousness after death) is correct and hardcore non-theists will continue to churn out excuses and become angry and bitter. Ah well. Their loss.

Definitely sensationalism, he’s just trying to get views. Sam never said anything about afterlife being proved, not even hinting it, he only mentioned his experience so far. I hate it when people like this oz guy do this, give NDEs a bad reputation and fuel the skeptics’ attacks.

Great pick up Eduardo. Did anyone notice the sleight of hand? Because not everyone bothers trawling though the comments sections, I am going to create a seperate post to give my thoughts on this video. I think it is very telling, but also we don’t learn anything new…or do we? Later today the new post will appear.

C’mon Chad… Do you really think that he would be allowed to complete AWARE II if he said it outright? His implications are enough to grasp the concept without abandoning that equanimity that he is using while walking a very fine line. The only reason that ideologues haven’t jumped at him yet, is because they expect him to fail. If he prematurely announced that he has “the proof” and he didn’t have enough hits, they would lawyer their stance to death by citing things like “inconclusive results”, “methodological flaws”, “faulty protocols”, etc.

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting in front of my father in his nursing home. He has advanced Alzheimer’s disease. He looks at me with his big sad brown eyes, and I know that he hasn’t got a clue who I am. He can’t speak, but he looks around curiously and he smiles…in fact oddly, he […]

I promised I would address this particular publication in a new post, as it has got lost in a long and winding discussion that came out of the last post. Here is the link to the full text of the publication which was published in August this year: Link to PDF of paper on Researchgate […]

Thanks to one of the regular contributors for this reminder, but Dr Parnia tweeted for the first time in a very long time: I use the word illusive since he doesn’t really clarify what this means. Is this AWARE II, surely not as that is well under way now. Are these sub-studies of AWARE II? […]

Apologies for the long gap between posts, but I am still working on a new book that I will be publishing later this year. Anyway, this article really caught my attention: Science and the Soul “But I was wrong. Katie made me face my misunderstanding. She was a whole person. The child in my office […]

I came across this in my googling of NDE research, and I think it may have been mentioned in a previous chat (sorry for not calling out the person who mentioned it). Click on the link to access the pdf. It is free to download. Meditation-Induced Near-Death Experiences: a 3-Year Longitudinal Study William Van […]

Thanks to Samwise for posting this in the comments section of the last post. Again, I felt this was worth creating a seperate post out of since it is news about the AWARE study, and the last post was nearing a hundred comments, so time to move on. The link below is for a new […]

I am in the process of working on a review of the literature on evidence against NDEs being a genuine out of body phenomenon. The key piece of evidence relates to reports of brain activity after the heart has stopped. There have been reports in rats up to 30 seconds after death, and also in […]

Thanks to Eduardo for picking this one up. I am extremely busy at the moment so don’t always have the time to trawl the networks for anything Parnia or NDE related, so appreciate when others email me links or post them in discussions. I felt this was worth pulling out. It was aired earlier this […]

“The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.” John 1:9 I usually avoid referencing my faith as I want this blog to focus objectively on the research around NDEs. However, in an era where I see my fellow Christians being persecuted on an ever larger scale, and the establishment doing its best […]

I finally received a response from Dr Parnia today to my questions. As I said previously, many of the questions had been answered in the various twitter posts he had created, specifically about numbers recruited so far, and timelines. There was a little more detail about the latter in the email. The announcement next year […]